The present invention re1ates to a device for orienting a mass consisting of wood chips, flakes, slivers and fibers in a preferred direction during the production of particleboard. Vertical guide surfaces are arranged in side-by-side fashion and spaced from one another. Above the guide surfaces, spaced apart horizontal rotating shafts are provided. Spacer rings and pin plates are arranged on the shafts.
A device for the orientation of wood chips and the like during the production of particleboard is known from DE-OS No. 30 18 683. Orientation of chips in a preferred direction is achieved in that above the guide surfaces an assembly of spacer rings, solid plates, and pin plates are arranged on rotating shafts. A device of this nature makes it possible to catch the chips falling onto the rotating shafts, namely by means of the pin plates and to guide these chips into discharge chutes defined by guide plates. This is accomplished by means of the solid plates, which, contrary to the pin plates, have varying diameters. Such an orienting process is difficult in those cases where great wood chip masses pass through the device, since the material to be oriented may enter and accumulate between the pin plates and the solid plates thereby causing a decrease of the passage cross section at the guide plates and blockage. Also it is possible that the pins of the pin plates, due to material falling between the solid plates and pin plates, are bent so far from the solid plates that they touch the edges of the guide plates when the shafts rotate. This may cause the pins to be torn off. Such a tearing may also cause the beginning of a blockage, since the pins of the pin plates no longer can direct the chip material--which partially lies cross-wise over the guide plates--into the chutes between the guide plates. In this case, the solid plates with various diameters are not sufficient to redirect a turned-around chip into a longitudinal orientation.
With the above as background, the purpose of the invention is to guarantee orientation of wood chips and the like to be discharged into a preferred direction, without congestion between the guide plates and without tearing the pins of the pin rollers. This problem is solved by the connection, according to the invention, of all pins with a self-contained closed ring in the same plane as the pins. An open plate arrangement is achieved, whereby the wood chips to be discharged, which are influenced by the pin ends, can also pass through the open plate behind the ring. Thus, there is no additional rotating wall between the individual orientation grids, which wall could cause a congestion in the orientation grid if the flow of chips is heavy, and there is also no danger that the pins are bent away from a plate.
Movement of extremely long chips is accomplished by tipping the chips perpendicularly to the feed direction and accelerating the chips through the pins in the discharge direction.
According to the invention, additional spacer plates, which form a very narrow grid, but due to the openings between the plate hub and the plate ring, it is very easy to achieve that even long pieces can be discharged as small chips through the narrow grids, since they can pass without difficulty through the free space between the plate hub and the plate ring.
Elliptical rings of the pin plates make it possible to cover a major portion of the horizontally arranged pin rollers and thus to decrease problem areas between the individual pin rollers and the guide plates.
The pins extend beyond the elliptical rings to produce a circular path. Also, proper orientation of individual chips is achieved by a variety of pin plate placements on the rotating shafts. When four pins per pin plate are provided, each adjacent plate is oriented 45.degree. in the rotational direction of the shaft. However, according to the invention, it is possible to vary the index angles and the number of pins as desired.
To support the orientation, particularly of long chips, different distances between the upper edges of the vertical guide plates and the horizontal shafts are provided. This will significantly facilitate the turning of chips lying cross-wise to the desired orientation without breaking these chips.
Such devices according to the invention are combined into scatter heads and used in the production of wood material boards with oriented individual chips. For large through-put quantities, several of these scatter heads are arranged in series.